Is the road to transgender dignity paved with adult diapers
By Byrgen Finkelman on November 20, 2015 at 12:28 AM
“Is it legal for trans women to use the ladies public restrooms? I only ask because I’m going to be in Small Town for a long time on Thursday for correcting my social security card and license then Wal-Mart for more crochet supplies. Usually if I’ve gone to Small Town I would hold it or embarrassingly wear discreet adult underwear.”
This query, which I received from a young transgender woman earlier this week, is reminiscent of Lyndon Johnson’s story to John Stennis the arch-segregationist Senator from Mississippi.
Then Vice-President Johnson spoke of his personal cook’s and her husband’s difficulties in driving the Vice-Presidential limousine across Mississippi on their way to Texas.
Johnson told Stennis, “[W]hen they had to go to the bathroom, they would stop, pull off on a side road, and Zephyr Wright, the cook of the Vice President of the United States, would squat in the road to pee.”
Johnson added, “And you know, John, that’s just bad. That’s wrong.”
That anyone should have to wear a diaper because they are afraid to use a public restroom made me want to cry.
As Johnson said, “That’s just bad. That’s wrong.”
How would you feel having to go to this extreme to avoid persecution or violence or having the police called just because you had to pee?
If the law doesn’t protect the right to pee, how can it protect the right to be?